The flaw is worse then just trying to evaluate merit.
Every person has strengths and weaknesses that are unique. If you have a worker in the warehouse who may be under performing, he may be under-performing because the worker isn't challenged enough, where promoted to say management he may be much more effective. However, if you do that, the warehouse workers who are busting their balls to get promoted would be pissed, and unmotivated by such an action.

Trade Wars is where everyone looses. But it comes down to which side is willing to suffer for longer.

While the US has more capital. The general citizenship has been mostly use to a level of comfort, that will hurt more if lost. While China will loose a lot, but the people on average have less, so the pain would be less.

China also has a tight hold on public opinion as hey! stated. Which would restrict decent.

However what makes it worse, is the US is not just hitting China, but basically the whole world, this can also be an opportunity for China to continue and step in with Europe, Asia, and Africa as the adults in the room.

Well you can look into the mirror, but you will find out these companies have been telling you that you NEED their products to be part of society for generations.

Can we have public transportation? Are you crazy, do you want to sit next to a smelly stranger every day for your commute. Plus the wait times and may not stop everywhere.
Can we just ride a Bicycle or walk? Are you just stupid, you are going to get hit by a truck.
Can we fix the roads to be Bike walker friendly? No, there isn't enough demand of bike riders or walkers.
OK, What about taking an Electric car? They are too expensive, and here is a case where it caught on fire and the fire department couldn't put it out quickly. (Also where does that electricity come from, and the materials to make the car) that's right from the Oil and Gas companies.
Well we can use Wind or Solar to charge our cars? Think about all those random birds that will blindly fly into the wind turbines, or land that could had been used for farm land to have solar farms, we will just starve the public.

These companies have invested heavy into giving the spin onto competing (and often measurably better) options, that people just think they are solid fact, and will regurgitate the planned response by their own will, thinking it is actually their own opinion.

I have found that an EV is more convenient for me.
I have a rather long commute of 30 miles to work and 30 miles back. I charge up at night and leave every day with a full charge. Where before when I use to have a Gas car, near the end of the week, I am driving home with the E light on my fuel gauge hoping I estimated my range correctly. Then I would often need to take an unscheduled stop to get fuel.

Normally I would need to drive 5 minutes off my route to get to the gas station, there is a often a car fueling up in front of me, that I have to wait for, then I would fill up, pay and drive back to my route. So it is often a 15-30 minute process, that I no longer need to do once or twice a week.

I have an EV. My homes AC and Heat pump uses more power than my EV. But no one is really complaining about home Climate Control as a drain on our power generation. Heck power companies are saying we should switch to heat pumps.

As well normal conditions EVs charge during the night while energy consumption is low, and helps balance the demand of the power grid, to allow more efficient use of the existing grid.

What you really should be concerned about is the AI farms, the AI based server farms chew up a heck a lot more power than EV.

A single leader can often have an Ego get in the way, and be blind of obvious things that need to be corrected, and often such an ego that lends itself running an organization tends to not be retrospective and realize they made a mistake and work on correcting it.

Committee tends to go towards group think. So the simplest to explain idea gets promoted. Which is often the wrong one. As well there is a lot of stuck movement waiting for an idea.

Those contractors also sold arms to the other side as well. America was late getting to both World Wars, mostly because they wanted to burn the candle at both ends and sell to each side. While they were more aligned with the English based powers, they were willing to do business with the Germans.

Sometimes after the research is done, we get an non-intuitive result.
Now we can use these results to make policy and rules better for the students, or we can just double down on our own view and stick our heads in the sand, and just push what we think will help despite the data.

That said while as an old guy, who went to school before everyone had cell phones. Heck in my under grad, I was one of the few students with a cell phone that just made calls (it did text too, but I had no one else to text to, plus it was expensive)

When I was in grad school I was old and mature enough not to use my phone during class.

So I would think having a smartphone in school with kids who are already easily distracted would cause more problems. But with the data results, I think I answered why I was was, kids during school age are easily distracted by anything. Doodling in your note book, checking out the pretty girl in front of you, joking around with your friends without trying to get caught... I think it is the case during school and being school age you are extremely distracted by everything anyways, having a phone in school wouldn't be much different, you would just be replacing say one of your activities to distract yourself with the phone. Perhaps less doodles in the notebook, (as I wouldn't imagine, that my phone would distract me from a pretty girl who I had a crush on).

But the results about social media, which is a big after school activity I feel would be the bigger factor. As I stated I am now an Old Guy, and I have to make sure I don't get too involved in social media myself, as you can go down a Toxic hole of misinformation and annoyingly stupid people and comments, that repeat over and over again... For a kid being exposed to that earlier in life, it would like being stuck in school drama even out of school, where you can normally relax from it and actually feel like a human for a bit.

The S24 does have an extended life span. I upgraded my S20 to the S24 mostly because it went EOL and I didn't want my work to cut me off if it wasn't secure enough.
But the S20 worked fine without any issues. The S24 is fine too. The AI features mostly the search by image and translate is handy, but still I mostly just want to browse the web quickly.

Companies are out to make money, while companies are run by people, they are not people. As the employees for the companies only have a shared agenda of making money. Thus moral issues are often ignored.

If we humans don't have jobs. We don't make money, we don't buy stuff. The companies that are all AI Driven don't have customers, so they cannot operate for free.

Now do humans basically get (more) token jobs, where we are kept busy? Or will we just basically live in a post capitalist utopia where everything we need and want is provided to us,

But 2027 is much too close for such social changes, especially with such a strong regressive attitude towards changes we are facing today. With the little people who have little power in this world being blamed for all of our problems. Saying everyone will be able to live with whatever they want without working for it, will not be tolerated for quite a while. Probably not within my life span.

While over decade ago, Social Media was supposed to be a free speech platform. Which helped spark a lot of movements and changes from sharing different viewpoints and showing global similarities. Then they needed to become more profitable (which is understandable in that early Social Media was bleeding money).
However to gain profit, they have the algorithm configured, to get us in social bubbles, and reward topics that get the most response and movement (to provide a higher ad rate). However this also demotes communication that may be a little bit longer, and possibly better researched, and nuanced. As new post on an Old Topic will not get much views, while a reactionary early post will get much more viewing.

While not outwardly restricting free speech, it is subverting the point of free speech as a way to explain ideas and opinion openly as an attempt to gain a better understanding, and insight.

I expect Musk might have Bipolar issues, and narcissism.

He basically switched from being a mostly left libertarian to a far right. I doubt he is/was any of these personas. However when Starting Electric Cars business, and Space X bringing America back into space. The Leftist folks mostly admired him, and was willing to put up with his eccentricities.
Then 2020 Covid hit, The while the Leftist government was focused on trying to minimize disaster with some strict rules, that hit Tesla, and made it hard for him to run his business, as well with politicians mostly begging him to help with the response. Then he being the richest person in the world then, was also a target of Wealthy who wasn't giving their fair share. Where the Right seeing his frustration began to court him and stroke his ego.

I don't think he really cares what is good for the environment or not, He jumped onto EV because he knew there is a market for those who would want them, and if he made something better than a compliance vehicle that others would be interested in as well. The problem Musk has is Tesla is too profitable to him, for him to leave and start a more Right friendly company.

What institution is actually trustful?
The Government?
Political Parties?
Corporations?
Hospitals?
Insurance Companies?
Not-for-Profit Orgs?
Charities?

Any institution is a good place to perform fraud in. Especially if you can perform good works overall, but skim off the top.

The problem is the human condition is we believe people and sources that we trust, and we discredit sources that we distrust.

Even with the smartest people, they are going to have a belief bias based on information they trust. To change a persons mind they will often need need that trusted source to explain why it is wrong, or for events that would loose your trust into that source.

For many people a pastor or other religious person of some clout is in a position of being a trustworthy fellow. And they would be able to push a message that people would believe (even from some rather intelligent people) that is overall just nonsense, and even contradictory to the tenants of the religion.

"Ah-ha!" says an Atheist, "because I don't trust religious folks then I am immune to such nonsense, my beliefs are based by empirical facts."
Well no, they are just as irrational as the religious person, but they are just trusting different sources. Say a political group (who may have some good ideas, but also tied in with crazy ones), marketing from companies, misinformation/FUD, or from your favorite news source, who makes those other guys seem like insane idiots.

There is a lot of so called "science" reporting, which is loosely around a scientific study, but often just a hypothesis at best, that a group of people are getting paid to study, however being from a trusted science source you may trust the message it is trying to convey. Even if it ultimately wrong.